Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Fast bowler and new signee to the Super Kings family, Dirk Nannes is already in Chennai and has begun his training.

Coaching and support staff will arrive in Chennai on March 27th, 2013

Fielding Coach, Stumpa Rixon will join the team on March 30th,

International players arrive in batches. Mike Hussey reaches Chennai on the 28th of March, followed by Ben Laughlin, Bravo, Holder and Hillfanhaus arriving on the 30th of March 2013.

Others expected by the 4th of April

Indian players will arrive on the 28th of March 2013.

Players playing for the state team qualifies for the Syed Musthaq Ali tournament join the camp on the 2nd of April, 2013

R Jadeja and Suresh Raina join the camp from the 31st of March. M Vijay and R Ashwin will be available from the 2nd, and Dhoni will reach on the 3rd of April after attending the opening ceremony in Kolkatta

The team will begin training from the 29th of March 2013 evening at the MAC stadium

It's a sad [day] for cricket as we are not allowed to play in a certain part of India.

I played for 20 years in the Lankan team, I did not have any problems as a Tamil. The government and the cricket board always supported me throughout my career even when I went through a lot of problems. Earlier there was a time of war between the Tamils and Lankans but now people are living in peace in my country

Chennai is like a second home for me as my wife Madhimalar is from there. It is a sentimental situation for me. We do not want to get into politics and we just want to play our cricket and entertain our fans.

Initial Happiness
My first reaction was one of happiness - since other than Kolkata & Rajasthan, everybody else has atleast 1 confirmed Srilankan player in their playing eleven. And Teams like Hyderabad might even lose their captain.

Better Solution Possible?
But later thinking about, I was not too convinced about the rationale. Protesting against Srilankan players for the crimes committed by their army seemed an extremist reaction.

Will the Indians be ok if Sachin was banned from Italy - since 2 Italians are in prison in India?

Or will the Australian players be ok if they were banned from entering India because of attacks against Indians in Australia?

Do believe that TN Government & IPL could have handled this better. By banning sports players of a particular country from entering certain parts of the country, India & IPL is setting up a bad precedent. Hope this does not get repeated.

P.S: I am a Tamizhan. And do sympathize with Srilankan Tamils & want justice for crimes committed against Srilankan Tamils.

P.P.S: Don't follow-up with this decision to another foolish decision to shift IPL matches from Chennai. We, the chennaities, are really looking forward to sixth season of IPL@ Chennai.